Pew(46)

               take bribes all the //         proud and vain //

I’ve tried to kill myself twice //                  made her do //

      feel sad that people need there to be a God just to be good to //

Several bells starting chiming and the voices—some of them moving faster now, some of them choked with crying, some of them angry—began to splinter, fade, cease.
                                          don’t know how to stop hating her //

      don’t always think God’s creation is //

I know I killed //

               I doubt all the time //

took a magazine from the doctor’s //

                                          not sure I can stop //

The bells drowned out the voices, washed them away, then the last bells sounded and the last sounds hummed and dissolved. Someone put a hand in mine—I forgive you. I forgive you, someone else said, shaking my hand again. I forgive you, said another, then another. Hands came into mine, and every hand felt both exactly the same and completely different. Everyone was forgiving everyone. I removed the scarf from my eyes to see some faces reddened, tear wet, some drained white in fear. Some kept their scarves on. Some people weren’t moving at all. Some weren’t saying anything. Just beyond the rumble of all this forgiveness I could hear every child in town, crying, their sorrow roaring like heavy rain, a storm of it.
Children—they know sin so well and they know God so well, a voice behind me said. I turned. It was one of the women I’d seen in the kitchen the other day. They know greed and love more than adults remember. They know God; they know terror. Know it by instinct. All the growing up is to forget what we know at birth. Ain’t it true? They cry because they can’t confess—know their wickedness but can’t say it. That’s why they cry. But don’t you worry—they’ll quiet down eventually.
She walked away from me. Others laughed or covered their faces. Some lay on the floor and some stood, holding one another. Some seemed not to be moving at all, not looking at anything, not thinking of anything. They were not anywhere, not anyplace at all. The lights were slowly brightening back on, and the curtains were being raised. The fans began spinning, humming above us, and the children came running in throughout the room, looking up at everyone from knee level, looking for a place to belong, for the person that would pick the child up.
At the edge of the room I saw Tammy crouched on the floor, and Hal stooped over her, covering her, holding her still. She was moaning, shaking, covering her face.
Some years you just hear too much is all, Hal was explaining to someone nearby. I felt relieved he didn’t see me passing by. I didn’t want either of them to remember me, to know I’d been here, that I’d gone through this time with them. A numbed feeling had overtaken the room and I didn’t want it to touch me.
A town has a feeling, I remembered someone telling me long ago, because certain kinds of thought are contagious. I’d never known exactly what that meant and maybe I still do not know, but I think I came to know it then.
Amen, a voice said. Amen. It was everywhere, all at once, like sunlight.
Where is the voice coming from? a child asked, but the adult standing above the child didn’t answer, held a finger over her mouth. The voice began to list names—Edward—and slowly the crowd fell silent again—Earl—listening to them as if listening to music—Johnson.
What are they doing now? the same child asked.
Reading the names, the adult whispered back.
Whose names?
Of the dead.
All the dead?
Some of them.
Which ones?
The adult hesitated. The child listened intently, as if she might be able to decode what was happening. She stared at the ceiling. She was learning how to live.
Which ones? she whispered again.
The ones who were killed.
Today?
No, not today. In years past.
Oh.
The names that had no holders kept coming.
Why did they die?
We all do.
But they were killed?
Yes.
Will we all be killed?
No.
Then why were they killed?
The adult was quiet for a little while longer, then knelt beside the child.
Because of what they might have done.
Who killed them?
The people we elected.
Do all elected people have to kill people?
Yes.
Why would anyone want to get elected?
Someone has to be elected, the adult said after some time. We have to elect people.
And why are they reading their names?
Because it’s the sin we’ve all done together. Something we had to do even though it was evil.
Even me?
I don’t know. Maybe not you. Not yet.
The child sat on the floor. Her face needed to be washed with tears, warm water from the body, the body’s way of saying, Yes, I am still in here.
When the last name was read, the voice said, Amen, and everyone said, Amen.
A picnic, the voice said, would be served in the parking lot, and the crowd moved peacefully toward the doors we’d come in through, but at the back of the room I saw an open door and just beyond it the moving shadow of someone who had just passed through it. When I looked around for anyone who might be accounting for me, all I could see was that numbness, no one seeing anyone, everyone walking away from here in the same direction.